I’ve been on Etsy since the early days. A big part of my experience there has been being involved in the street teams on there. Being a leader on the Etsy Saskatchewan team has been both a way to pay it forward in a mentor sense and a great way to get some experience helping coordinate events.
In 2024 Etsy Saskatchewan rebranded to the Sask Collective in an effort to make more small artist types feel welcome at our events. It’ll still be Erin Pell and I, along with a lot of artists and friends, making the shows work so you’ll find familiar faces.
Side note: about 10 years ago I was a tourist at an event for STEAM types and was speaking to a much more experienced participant about how I wasn’t sure about what type of vendor / booth I would like to be. His comment was: be the one you’d like to see.
So, every event we put on is one we’re happy to participate in. It’s one we’d have been happy to find to show in. We try to be as kind and helpful as possible while still being a lot picky and professional because, for us, the art is still the reason we’re doing this.
Last fall we wrapped up our first Holiday Harvest here in Swift Current. The event is our own version of the longstanding but now defunct Fall Into Christmas Swift Current show… and it went well? Like, there’s a ton of things we need to work on but it went pretty darn well for a first run? We got people to show up, donated a little pile of money to the local SPCA, worked with the local radio stations for their own charity thing and talked to THOUSANDS of people.
We’ve just opened up our vendor calls for 2025! if you’re interested in a market in Saskatoon, at the start of June, or in Swift Current at the beginning of October, give us a shout.